Growing out of a love of swords, sorcery and sandaled barbarians as well as a lifelong struggle with anxiety and depression, By Crom! is a tribute not just to Robert E. Howard’s hero, but to everyone who could use a brave, practical and stoic inner voice to guide them through life’s rough spots.

In By Crom!, the barbarian adviser comes along for dog walks, doctor’s visits, school days and self-pity days, armed with his sword and his anachronistic perspective on modern life and modern problems.

By Crom! is a joke-a-panel webcomic, and it was published approximately weekly on Tuesdays from January, 2012 until May 2014. It began its life on bycrom.tumblr.com.

All of the published comics can be read here on Weald – pick a book to get started:

The Collected By Crom! is out of print. It presented all the black and white comics, as well as a paper doll, five behind the scenes pinups, two fan pinups (by cartoonists Kat Verhoeven and Adam Gorham), an eight-page longform comic and an eloquent foreword by Diana Poulsen, it’s got a lot of barbarian-themed advice. It was printed in July 2013, in Ontario, Canada, and reprinted in April 2014 in Quebec, Canada.

Reception for By Crom! has been really positive.

“Throughout the series, Comic Rachel deals with mental illness, the death of her beloved dog (it’s beautiful, and I cried), identity crises, careers, and bra shopping. It sounds intense, and it is, but with the stoic barbarianism of Crom, there’s a hilarity in the refreshing lack of sentimentality. This same lack of sentimentality only gets better when later in the collection, Crom shows up awash in watercolors.”

“Although some of Kahn’s By Crom! comics juxtapose the fictional Hyborian Age that Conan comes from with the modern era and its coffee shops, public transit, and clothing that didn’t come from an animal you killed yourself … for the most part, it is about Conan as spirit guide; his warrior values are a chasm apart from Kahn’s artist lifestyle, but she imagines a wisdom in his droll (and occasionally head-knocking) advice.”

“By wrenching him from his context, Kahn reveals Conan’s personality: all about raw personal authenticity, the kind you achieve by acting rather than angsting… making, rather than purchasing… travelling to, rather than importing from. This is a Conan who is still relevant today and perhaps explains why we keep coming back to the originals.”

A. G. Pasquella writes about the first By Crom! zine (now out of print) in Broken Pencil:

“This is a kinder, gentler Conan: less barbarian, more Spirit Guide-Psychiastrist; a trusted confidant, like a nonthreatening sensitive male Sex in the City-style friend (for instance, Kahn and Conan have the same taste in gladiator sandals). … Ultimately By Crom! is an interesting subversion of so-called “traditional” gender roles. “

“Whether it be laughter in the face of existential crisis or an armed assault on the depths of the dryer in search of that last sock, Conan always has a laconic wisdom to add to the situation. … And sometimes he just helps you walk the dog and eats all your strawberries. Barbarians are like that.”